Most Rev. Father Patrick Murray (1865-1959) Superior General, C.Ss.R., 1909-1947
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RoBERT CuLHANE . MOST REV. FATHER PATRICK MURRAY (1865-1959) SUPERIOR GENERAL, C.SS.R., 1909-1947. BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE OVER THE YEARS I865-1909. INTRODUCTION. Sir Peter Lely was at his best when painting court beauties. He knew, too, how to play his cards with people that mattered. A favourite at the court of Charles I and of Charles II; he was still in favour during the Commonwealth. During this period his ability and tact stood one unusual test. Oliver Cromwell (according to a story evidently not maimed in the telling) charged him to include in· his portrait cc all these roughnesses, pim ples, and watts, and everything you see, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it ». Father Patrick Murray was obliged to suffer the attentions of a photo grapher on a few occasions. Nothing would have annoyed him more than :> literary portrait, especially one leaning somewhat on his merits. cc 1 know n he said once, « that a necrology, with an account of one's virtues, is prescribed but I do hope that I will be spared one n. Fortunately in the past obedience to like wishes has been more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Had it not been so the world would have been the poorer for much of the literature that has nourished and improved millions. Literature is meant to express excellence. Let it not be thought for a moment that literature, even of the humblest type, is offered in the following pages. Apart from other considerations the circumstances of their composi tion prevent any such claim. They were written in moments spared from the rush and roar of missionary life. Moreover this account of· Father Murray does not claim to be critical in the scientific sense. A main part of my task was to collect information on Father Murray's life up to the time of his election as Superior General. This was no small difficulty. Records for his years in the Congregation were few and scattered and had to be collected, almost entirely, through correspondence. The Pro vincial archives of the Irish Province, though well kept for the period under review, date only from 18g8, the year of the foundation of the Province. 22 Despite the rigidly self-effacing quality of his character as Superior General, Father Murray could not effectively avoid public notice or ruthlessly suppress records of his activity. Before 1909 his freedom to avoid notice of every type was greater and makes the effort to build up his biography for those years extremely difficult. I have asked people who knew him well to state their views on him. Unfortunately most of the people who knew him best predeceased him. It must be borne in mind that he had reached the age of discretion before St. Teresa of the Infant Jesus was born. He outlived practically all his contemp~raries by a score of years. For the period Patrick Murray spent as a student in Maynooth and also to a considerable extent for the account of his vocation I had to depend much on the Curriculum Vitae which he wrote as a novice. This document needed delicate handling. In it dates and names of persons are scarcely ever given and scant attention is paid to chronology. The Curriculum runs to twenty two closely packed pages. The handwriting is neat and well formed but much smaller than that used by Father Murray in later years. One gets the impression that he is writing against time and is determined to cramp a lot of matter into a limited amount of paper. Spelling is faultless but the sentences suffer from haste. Clauses forgotten at first are loosely tagged on at the end. However, the meaning of the overburdened sentences is usually sufficiently clear. Giving the account of his vocation as a novice he is concerned almost exclusively with the impact opposition from his relatives had on his own state of soul at the time. The cc why n of the opposition is never explained. If anything the Curriculum is on this point likely to mislead one who has not the aid of independent information to interpret it. Fortunately, Father Murray did very clearly provide that information in later years: and espe cially in conversation with the Redemptoristine nuns in Dublin. Without this explanation, and the clear grasp the good Sisters got of it, the opposition Father Murray suffered on account of his vocation would be most puzzling especially to Irish readers. The hardness of the opposition was due: almost exclusively to the spectre of cc a spoiled priest n in the family. Our priest novelist, Canon Sheehan, who died in 1913 wrote one of his short stories on the spoiled priest. Explaining the expression for outsiders he added this note : cc This is the term used in some parts of the country to express the failure of a student who has just put his foot within the precincts of the Sanctuary and been rejected. Up to quite a recent period such an ill-fated youth was regarded by the peasantry with a certain amount of scorn, not unmingled with superstition. Happily, larger ideas are being developed on this subject n. With the advantage of other sources of information I have been able to supply names and dates where necessary and to mark the broad essential lines of chronology.· Fortunately the Maynooth College Calendar for r884-r889 was available and this was a great help to me in a number of ways. Finally this account is offered as an appreciation. As such it necessarily belongs to that type of biography termed engage - it is conditioned by a 23 point of view. But within these limits I have tried to present the profile of Father Patrick Murray with sympathetic impartiality. I. EARLY YEARS (r86s-r88o) Et erit tamquam lignum, quod plantatum est secus decursus aquarum, Quod frl).ctum suum dabit in tempore suo ; et folium eius. non defluet. He shall be like a tree planted Beside the watercourses, That yields its fruit in due season And whose leaf withers not. Patrik Murray was born on November 24, r86s, at Drumdeevin, Termon, near Letterkenny, in the County of Donegal and in the Diocese of Raphoe, Ireland. He was one of seven children, four boys and three girls, born to Patrick Murray and Rose Devanny. All are now dead. Anne, the longest lived of his sisters, predeceased him by two years. A nephew, who retains the traditional family name of Patrick, and a niece· now live in the parental home of Father Murray. Since about the middle of the eighteenth century Termon has been united with Gartan as one parish. The parish has historical importance for at Gartan St. Colurilba - one of the three national patrons of Ireland - was born in the sixth century. The parish of Gartan and Termon, and in fact the whole Diocese of Raphoe are in the Civil County division of Donegal - the most northerly territory under the Dublin ·administration. In turn the Diocese of Raphoe belongs to the ecclesiastical province of Armagh. Father Murray was born in a small neat farmhouse. A young German, Walter Mosbauer, who had Redemptorist friends, visited this farmhouse some twenty years ago. Later while a prisoner of war he described his visit in a letter (September 23, 1941) to a German confrere:. «In the company of a Boys Scouts' leader and a man who was a sculptor at Letterkenny cemetery, I made a call by car on the relations of Most Reverend Father Murray. The journey was not easy as the rains had made the roads unpleasant. Eventually we reached a farmhouse in a thinly populated part of the countryside. I was met at the door by an old lady, Father Murray's unmarried sister, Anne, and his married brother, Charles. Never, even in Ireland, did I receive a better welcome. I felt a most distinguished person. On the lime-washed wall, over on the right, in an old frame, was a photo graph of the Superior General as a young priest. In such a cottage as this, lived dear old folk. We drank strong tea and ate home-made bread. We read letters, looked over photographs and told .many a story. And there your are - from such a small dwelling as this comes many a great leader for the Church n. :44. 'Times were h~rd when Father Murray was born into this home. Not the least part of the misery was a cruel system of landlordism under which the people groaned and slaved. Just four years before he was .born, Father Murray's parish suffered wholesale and unprovoked evictions. Homeless people wandered about for whoni nothing remained but the living death of a workhouse or exile. They chose exile to distant Australia taking with them parcels of clay from the cemetery sur:hiunding the spot where St. Columba was born (r). Dr. Samuel Johnson giving his impressions on. Iona, the .centre of St. Coluniba's monastic life, said: « That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon,· or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona (:4) ». The scene of Calumba's birth and Baptism constantly reminded the people of Gartan and. Termon of their Patron's spiritual teaching. The little parcels of clay enshrined part of Cohimba's message - and with a new depth of meaning. Meditating on the .nobility. of soul over body St. Columba was fond of this train of thought : « The body is from the slime of the earth, at death it begins to crumble to earth, .in the grave it is covered with earth », and he spoke this .stanza: «Three little sods ho· man can shun; So the old saying used to run.